History Main / VillainyDiscretionShot

* While Daranimaru Goryo of MuhyoAndRoji does some [[KickTheDog fairly nasty acts]] when he's shown, such as charging an orphan $50,000 for an exorcism, and laughing about a single mother going insane after her daughter's death, many of the Goryo group's more ruthless business practices are never shown, and they attempt to open a law office in Muhyo's territory by challenging him to a ghost removal contest. [[spoiler:Goryo wins, but returns Muhyo's office to him after Muhyo saves him from Ark]].

* Many characters in ''OnePiece'' arguably get this treatment. The details of how Kuma came to be known as a "tyrant" are never shown, many {{Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain}}s work for {{Big Bad}}s, and it's implied that [[HarmlessVillain Buggy]] blew up inhabited areas with his cannon before the story began.

* After [[spoiler:Veronica]]'s defeat in ''StrangersInParadise'', we see her duct-taped to a chair while Tambi looms over her, knife in hand. [[spoiler:Veronica is later found distributed across a large part of Long Island. Tambi is still portrayed as mostly sympathetic, and Katchoo still hugs her when they meet.]]

* Anakin's massacre of the Sand People in ''Franchise/StarWars: AttackOfTheClones'' is disturbingly rarely reflected upon (Palpatine briefly mentions it near the beginning of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', but that's all). This is particularly troubling as this behavior would seem much more indicative of ties to the Dark Side than the petulant behavior which the film spends more time on. None of the Jedi know, and it turns out not to be very relevant at all. [[spoiler:His slaughter of Yoda's younglings, on the other hand...]]

** In ''WesternAnimation/TheCloneWars'', [[spoiler:Anakin begins to strangle a defiant Poggle the Lesser using the Force. The rest of the interrogation is never seen, but when Anakin comes back to the other Jedi with important information, they pointedly wonder just what Anakin did to get their uncooperative prisoner to talk.]] Keep in mind that so far, the series has distinctly avoided Anakin's dark side.

* In [[FanFic/TheCATverse the {=CATverse=}]], Jonathan Crane is a multiple murderer who is prone to extremely DisproportionateRetribution and has experimented on innocent civilians. While the stories make a point not to sugar-coat his personality or his behavior, his more violent actions are generally not dwelled on, and he has both a [[FreudianExcuse truly nasty childhood]] and sympathetic moments with his henchgirls. His henchgirls are more AffablyEvil than anything else and are presented as likeable characters, but are still party to kidnapping, torture, and murder. There is one major exception to this - in ''Small World'', Crane commits a graphic murder and tortures a child multiple times, his mother and sister respectively, even disturbing his henchgirls.

* In [[FanFic/TheCATverse the {=CATverse=}, Jonathan Crane is a multiple murderer who is prone to extremely DisproportionateRetribution and has experimented on innocent civilians. While the stories make a point not to sugar-coat his personality or his behavior, his more violent actions are generally not dwelled on, and he has both a [[FreudianExcuse truly nasty childhood]] and sympathetic moments with his henchgirls. His henchgirls are more AffablyEvil than anything else and are presented as likeable characters, but are still party to kidnapping, torture, and murder. There is one major exception to this - in ''Small World'', Crane commits a graphic murder and tortures a child multiple times, his mother and sister respectively, even disturbing his henchgirls.

* Played very straight in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''. Signum, Vita, Shamal, and Zafira are [[ArtificialHuman constructs designed]] to protect the [[ArtifactOfDeath Book of Darkness.]] They've been around for centuries, and it's hinted that they may have killed ''hundreds'' of people prior to joining Nanoha's circle of (very forgiving) friends. Hayate happens to witness the Wolkenritter fighting in the past in a PensieveFlashback, and while she objects to what they're doing, she mainly sees them as victims and sympathizes with them.

** In ''TheCloneWars'', [[spoiler:Anakin begins to strangle a defiant Poggle the Lesser using the Force. The rest of the interrogation is never seen, but when Anakin comes back to the other Jedi with important information, they pointedly wonder just what Anakin did to get their uncooperative prisoner to talk.]] Keep in mind that so far, the series has distinctly avoided Anakin's dark side.

* A variant occurs in the Bogart/Bacall noir film, ''KeyLargo''. Bacall's character, one of several people being held by the evil gangster in her own hotel, is being menaced by the gangster. He seems to actually notice for the first time how attractive she is, and so leans forward, bringing his lips to her ear... Cut to their silhouettes on the wall, his lips moving but with no words audible, background music rising--suddenly, she snaps, and slaps him across the face. We never know what was said, of course, but obviously it must've been horrible, and the viewer is basically free to set the perversion meter at just past their own tolerance level.
* In ''SuicideKings'', the film will show you [[TheDragon Lono]] repeatedly hitting an abusive drunk in the face with a toaster, Lono beating a money launderer senseless with a golf club, and Lono shooting a pair of [[EvilDebtCollector Evil Debt Collectors]], but when it comes time for Lono to [[spoiler:kill the StarCrossedLovers Max and Elise]], the camera cuts away just before the shots.

* In ''KingOfNewYork'', it's understood that, yes, the VillainProtagonist ''is'' a drug lord and, yes, he does sell nickel backs of coke and smack all over Harlem, but it's a purely intellectual understanding. We never see any of his men hand over any drugs to shaking addicts jonesing for a fix.

* This is somewhat [[DoubleSubversion doubly subverted]] in the ''{{Dragaera}}'' series, on account of the different SympatheticPOV between the ''Taltos'' and ''Khaavren'' entries. In the former, Vlad knows that his powerful friends have slaughtered scores of people in the past, often in horrible ways (they all possess weapons that kill people's souls), with many of their victims being [[FantasticRacism humans like himself]]. As far as he knows them, though, they are loyal friends sharing his DeadpanSnarker sense of humor. On the other hand, the latter series shows or at least tells about some of these actions directly (like Morrolan not only killing a god but also slaughtering an entire village, men, women, and children, of his worshippers). Then again, Vlad himself is a mobster and professional killer [[spoiler:at least for the first half of the series]].
* In ''TheDresdenFiles'', Marcone is regarded as a crime lord and general vile scum. The worst thing he definitely does is run a brothel. A clean, safe, honest brothel where the prostitutes are treated well. It's hinted that he does worse, but exactly what is never said. Combined with the frequency that he fights with the good guys, he can come off as something of a DesignatedVillain. Next to ancient vampire armies, fallen angels, and literal forces of nature, the mob boss of Chicago is relatively low on the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil.

* The amount of people that have been killed one way or another by Lana of ''{{Smallville}}'', who has yet to be arrested. Looking back on it, it's pretty impressive.

* Another comical example is ''BlackAdder''. Various incarnations of Edmund have definitely committed a fair amount of murders and other unscrupulous deeds on innocent and not so innocent people, but when shown at all, they're generally in a humorous style to downplay his sociopathic tendencies.

* It's entirely probable that the title character of ''InvaderZim'' has a body count in the ''millions'', stretching across numerous solar systems, yet he's mostly treated as an IneffectualSympatheticVillain. While most of his past acts weren't really evil, just incredibly incompetent, it's amazing he isn't treated more seriously.

* Really all of the Apostles in Griffith's new Band of the Hawk in ''{{Berserk}}'' qualify, but especially Irvine and Locus, because both seem to be fairly decent, noble people. You can only become an Apostle by crossing the MoralEventHorizon, so all of them must have done something horrifically evil in the past; the audience just hasn't been shown whatever it was.

* ''DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' does this all the time, with what sometimes seems like half the cast. (More like a third or a fourth - not counting all the unnamed 'cubi milling around on the edges, torturing/killing/eating the souls of random victims.)
* Karl Kroenen in ''AbeKroenen'' is an assassin who worked for ''Hitler'' before he went to serve Rasputin and whose body count numbers in the dozens if not hundreds (and that doesn't even count people he's killed in battle). However, mentions of his brutalities are brushed off or nervously laughed at.
* ''[[WebComic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater]]'' is perhaps the purest distillation of this trope, due to a combination of the CrapsackWorld setting and being a deconstruction of the typical sociopathic RPG party, with atrocities committed left, right and centre by protagonists, antagonists and others both onscreen and offscreen, with precisely ''one'' death that wasn't done comedically (and that was for about two pages).

[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/StarWars http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discretion_4165.jpg]]]]

[[folder:Film]]

* Stans in ''Film/{{Predators}}'' is a death row inmate who admits to having killed 38 people because he could and casually talks about commiting rape, yet is portrayed as a [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold loveable jerk]] who is concerned about others and [[spoiler: sacrifices himself to save them]]

* In Disney's ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'', a lyric in the VillainSong goes "Worse than the widows and orphans you drowned!"
* Shan Yu from ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'' is established as a blood thirsty warlord who loves to kill people, but not one of his killings is shown on screen - just the aftermath of one of his raids on a village and the bodies of Shang's father and his soldiers. He does, however, order his men to kill one of two Imperial scouts just ForTheEvulz, which is very brutal by Disney standards.
--> '''Shan Yu:''' How many men does it take to deliver a message?
--> '''Hun Archer:''' *draws bow* One.
* On ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'', Heloise commits all kinds of KickTheDog acts, and it's hinted that she tortures people for fun. Yet all this happens off screen so she can continue being the AntiHero.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' cartoon adaptation of "The Purple Smurfs", the [[ButtBiter tail-biting]] that the purple fly and the Purple Smurfs engage in is never shown onscreen, mostly just the reactions of the Smurfs whose tails are getting bitten.

-->--''Series/RedDwarf'', "Gunmen of the Apocalypse"

[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/StarWars http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discretion_4165.png]]]]

[[quoteright:300:[[Franchise/StarWars http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discretion_4085.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Guess what he's [[WouldHurtAChild about to do]]. (And no, he's not about to [[ComicallyMissingThePoint teach them a trick]].)]]

** It gets particularly odd when you consider that a patient dying because of a mistake on the part of any other character is something entirely serious. The only episode that treated Doug as a serious character at all was the one where he discovered that his tendency to kill people made him an excellent pathologist - a job which he also ended up being incompetent at after a few episodes.
** No, he's a very good pathologist...EXCEPT for having trouble taking care of the bodies after analyzing them.

* In Disney's ''TheGreatMouseDetective'', a lyric in the VillainSong goes "Worse than the widows and orphans you drowned!"
* Shan Yu from ''{{Mulan}}'' is established as a blood thirsty warlord who loves to kill people, but not one of his killings is shown on screen - just the aftermath of one of his raids on a village and the bodies of Shang's father and his soldiers. He does, however, order his men to kill one of two Imperial scouts just ForTheEvulz, which is very brutal by Disney standards.

** In the original ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'', on the other hand, we get a very indiscreet look at his capabilities.

** FridgeBrilliance: He's treated badly because he's TRYING to conquer Earth...if he was made to protect it, we'd be conquered in a week. (Not counting a couple of episodes where he DOES save the Earth)

* In ''TheDresdenFiles'', Marcone is regarded as a crime lord and general vile scum. The worst thing he definitely does is run a brothel. A clean, safe, honest brothel where the prostitutes are treated well. It's hinted that he does worse, but exactly what is never said. Combined with the frequency that he fights with the good guys, he can come off as something of a DesignatedVillain.

* Hilariously parodied in ''TheCarolBurnettShow'' in a sketch involving a doomed romance between a man on his way to death row and a woman with a terminal disease. The man's guard likes his prisoner and tells him so, adding that, "I'm sure all the people you killed had it coming... all 48 of them." The man replies, "I'm not so sure... Mom and Dad had their good points."

* Tuco of ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'' has a rapsheet that indicates he's a rapist and mass murderer. He doesn't do anything nearly that bad on camera and is presented as a humorous character- and the LongList of his crimes is itself somewhat PlayedForLaughs.

* From ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Garak used to be a member of the Obsidian Order, the Cardassians version of secret police. Considering what perfectly normal citizens will cheerfully do in the name of Cardassia (one notable Cardassian torturer had his daughter at 'work', while still behaving like a kind and loving father), the exact details of what a member of the Order gets up to is best left unmentioned. If he wasn't such a MagnificentBastard and on the side of the Federation (and he's only working with the Federation because he detests [[spoiler:what the Dominion has done to his beloved Cardassia]]), he'd be a villain.
** Noteworthy is the time when Garak responds to a dream of Bashir's where he was the enemy. "Are you saying that after all these lunches we've had together you still don't trust me? There may be hope for you yet."

** It's discussed in much more detail in the Creator/MattStover {{novelization}}: the point is made that Anakin was totally out of control, killing the Sand People out of hate and anger. His murders in Ep III are cold blooded and premeditated.

* ''KindHeartsAndCoronets'' makes murder seem like a rather jolly gentleman's pursuit by never dwelling on its impact (except for a few scenes after the death of [[spoiler: Henry showing Edith's grief]]) and by making the murders themselves seem rather funny. The audience can be forgiven for watching this film and either forgetting that Louis is a serial killer or rooting for him in his cull of detached family members.

* Used to brilliant effect in ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', in which the eponymous character is a mass murderer with a body count of, at the ''very least'', three dozen people. It's stated numerous times that he only kills murderers (or in one instance, a child molester who was stalking his girlfriend's daughter), his actions are repeatedly shown to save innocent lives, and on the few occasions the audience actually sees him killing it's make abundantly clear that his victim is a vile, disgusting, irredeemable scumbag far worse than him, all of which assists greatly in portraying him as a SociopathicHero and perpetuating the BlackAndGreyMorality of the series.
** He has killed at least one innocent person, althrough he thought he was guilt and his actions in season 3 and 4 lead to the death of innocents too.

[[quoteright:300:[[StarWars http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discretion_4085.png]]]]